Preparing to use bottle nutes for the first time

Hey guys, preparing for the next grow in a few weeks, running some tropicana cookie photos and growing in coco with GH Flora Trio+Calmag. Pretty sure I have a feed schedule figured out and typed up to reference, my question is do I need to feed until run off after every feeding? And should be I be flushing with just water every other feed? Just trying to get all the right details in stone before I get started, I’d appreciate any help or extra advice you have! Thank you as always growmies :handshake: :slightly_smiling_face:

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Coco is pretty specific to grow in. I would clear any idea of flushing out unless it’s to correct an issue. If you do end up flushing, you’ll want to feed in order to reset nutrients right after.

When your plants are smallish i would say 2 weeks or so and younger, you can get away with just feeding a small amount every day or two. Once they have a few sets of leaves feed to decent amount of runoff daily.

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Heres the perfect coco mixer fir GH trio +cal-mag.
I run a sterile system (no microbes) so I also add 3ml h2o2 per gallon also.

You will never need to flush and feed every time you water. No just water days or just calmag days unless theres issues and it’s not very likely if you stick to the script.
Water daily after first few weeks for fastest growth or every 2-3 days is fine but growth will be slower.

Of course when its flower time feed everyday day!

Good luck, lots of people use coco so you’ll have no shortage of techniques suggested…

Edit: for get the flushing products suggested at end of cycle, if you must “flush” before harvest, just use water, no need for the extra flushing products…

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If it helps, think of coco as flood and drain hydroponics. You basically water till run off regularly fot best results. But good thing about coco over straight water hydroponics is you can skip days if you want and it want hurt them if you do other then slow growth some…

Coco can be super easy if ya keep it simple and dont turn your coco into soil like some do by adding organic matter like crazy…

This is exactly what I was looking for, thank you! And how often are you feeding? Every 1-2 days? Or when dry/nearly dry?

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So i use that mixture in my autopots thst of course is a constant bottom feed.
I also use it to hand water both top and bottom feed.
And I try to water daily but honestly ot ends up beings every other day or 3 sometimes.

But of course when building flowers I try my best to not miss a day…

I use coco and perlite, most time i buy foxfarm cultivation nation 70/30 coco/perlite cuz im to lazy to mix my own :confused:

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I should have been more clear…

Do not top and bottom feed the same plant.
Whatever you go with stick to it all the way through…

Bottom feeding is great but salts build up on top of the soil and if you one day water from top after bottom feeding alot, you can get some issues with pushing alot of nutes into the root zone…

Bottom feeding having no run-off so ultimately less nutes and water needed

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I’m sorry I just got even more confused lol. So feeding, from top soil using bottle nutrients. Every 1-3(max) days, and am I watering from the top until I have run off at the bottom? Just need a little clarification on that aspect lol. Thank you very much though for all the info thus far! Got me even more excited to get these girls started!

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Sry freind i get medicated and start to ramble :man_facepalming:

So watering from top “aka top feed”, always get good run-off when watering from the top, run-off comes out the bottom…

Watering from the bottom “aka bottom feed”, is when you literally pour the water into a dish or tray thst the pot sits in and the water soaks up into thr plant from the bottom up like a wick in a lantern.

When bottom feeding a plant there is no run-off because the water isn’t running through the coco so it takes less water because none is waisted…
Bottom feeding by nature doesn’t “wash” away unused nutrients like water from top till run-off does.

It actually causes the unused nutrients to be pushed to the top inch or two of the coco or soil…

So if you decided to start bottom feeding, it’s not advisable to switch back top watering from the top as it can push the build up down into the root zone and lock it up or over dose it :sweat_smile:.

Hope that makes more sense, if not lmk and i try explain definitely :grin:

This is a top fed plant. Every time I feed it I give it enough to produce at least 10% runoff - preferably more. Today I gave her 6 liters of nutrient solution. This produced 1500ML of runoff (1500/6000 = 25%). I am using coco and fed her yesterday. Today’s runoff was a little more because of timing.


One benefit of coco is the concept of frequent fertigation. You are frequently providing fresh, fully loaded nutrient solutions allowing the plant to draw from it what it needs. Additionally, each time you feed it the unused excess nutrients are washed out by always generating adequate runoff.

I also run a couple of autopots. Like @1HappyPappy said it is a bottom feed system. Once the system is operational you stop top feeding. All nutrients are delivered via tubing from a a reservoir to the autopot tray and is then drawn up by the medium and plant. A float valve mechanism controls the amount of liquid in the tray.


If for some reason you need to flush the medium plain pH water replaces the nutrient solution in the reservoir. This will dilute the concentration at root level without disturbing what may have accumulated on the top.
I use Jack’s 321 formula and coco with perlite. Cocoforcannabis is a good reference and information source for growing in coco.
Good luck

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